[LINK] (fwd) Court orders man to pull offensive content from Internet

[Greg Taylor]

Craig Sanders wrote:
>....
> an interesting question, at least for LINKers, is where was
> the web site
> actually hosted?  if in australia, then certainly australia's
> hate-speech legislation applies (however misguided it is).  if hosted
> outside of australia, however, the question of jurisdiction arises.
> what jurisdiction does an australian court have over a foreign
> publication?

As Howard has pointed out, it is hosted in Australia.  However, that is not
necessarily relevant to this case.

The judgement is at:
  http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/cth/federal_ct/2002/1150.html

The offence is covered under the Racial Discrimination Act 1975 s.18C:
http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/rda1975202/s18c.html
and the key words would appear to be:
"(2) For the purposes of subsection (1), an act is taken not to be done in
private if it:
     (a)  causes words, sounds, images or writing to be communicated to the
public; ..."

The court order is:
"2. The respondent:
(a) within seven days of the date of this order do all acts and things
necessary to remove from the website http://www.adelaideinstitute.org and
from all other World Wide Web websites the content of which is controlled by
him or by the Adelaide Institute: ...."

So it would appear to make no difference where the website is hosted.
However, the Court may have more difficulty exercising jurisdiction over the
Wayback Machine or other web caches ;-)

Jurisdictional issues relating to Internet content have been muddied by a
number of judgements in various countries.  An important precedent will be
set when the High Court rules on the defamation case Gutnick v. Dow Jones,
which involved publication on a US site which reached an Australian
audience.


Greg







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